WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.480 So we're going to turn now and read from God's word from Psalm 150. 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:18.760 If you have a Bible, please do turn there and it will also be on the screens. 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:24.960 Psalm 150. 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:28.580 And this is God's word. 00:00:28.580 --> 00:00:29.679 Praise the Lord. 00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:32.320 Praise God in his sanctuary. 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:35.200 Praise him in his mighty heavens. 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:37.759 Praise him for his mighty deeds. 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:41.039 Praise him according to his excellent greatness. 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:42.719 Praise him with trumpet sound. 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:45.560 Praise him with lute and harp. 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:47.920 Praise him with tambourine and dance. 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:51.640 Praise him with strings and pipe. 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:54.159 Praise him with sounding cymbals. 00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:57.159 Praise him with loud clashing cymbals. 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.600 Let everything that has breath. 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:00.800 Praise the Lord. 00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:01.800 Praise the Lord. 00:01:01.800 --> 00:01:04.680 This is God's word. 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.719 We're ending the series today on the Psalms. 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:12.159 We've been exploring Psalms from each of the different five books of Psalms and looking 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:16.879 at how actually there's a unity in the midst of the diversity of Psalms. 00:01:16.879 --> 00:01:22.640 There's all sorts of Psalms that we have and it's striking in this musical prayer book 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:28.799 that God's given us that the very last Psalm is the one we just read Psalm 150. 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:33.959 In that in the midst of the diversity of Psalms, so many of the Psalms are about sorrow and 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:40.439 about lamentation and about grieving and David and others praying desperate prayers to God 00:01:40.439 --> 00:01:42.280 asking for help. 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:44.840 And then you come to the very end. 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:49.700 And if there is a real unity, if the compilers of the Psalms were really trying to do something 00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:54.359 with the way the Psalms are structured, after so many Psalms of lamentation, the prayer 00:01:54.359 --> 00:01:59.319 book that God's given us ends in joyful praise and it ends in a command. 00:01:59.319 --> 00:02:05.519 It was very clear here to sing songs to God and then you ask, well, how should we do that? 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:12.120 And it says do it with symbols and with lute and harp and with the instruments. 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:16.039 And it's very clear here that God is saying, I want you to worship me in music. 00:02:16.039 --> 00:02:19.280 And so the Psalm book has all sorts of diversity. 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:23.120 And then at the very end, it ends with the command of God, the hallelujah. 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:26.039 Praise the Lord and praise the Lord with music. 00:02:26.039 --> 00:02:32.520 Now let's ignore every single debate in our denominations history, if you're familiar 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:40.480 with this, about Psalm 150 this morning and about all that it says here and get more foundational 00:02:40.480 --> 00:02:41.480 than that. 00:02:41.480 --> 00:02:49.120 And that's to see actually the significance that God commands us to make music to God. 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:54.200 And I think one of the things that's implicit in this text when you really dig underneath 00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:59.240 it is that actually music and the gospel go hand in hand. 00:02:59.240 --> 00:03:03.319 And so we're going to see three lessons from this Psalm this morning that pull that out. 00:03:03.319 --> 00:03:07.920 The first is we'll see the God of music here in Psalm 150. 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:12.439 And then the music of deliverance and finally the power of music. 00:03:12.439 --> 00:03:16.000 So let's look at that first, the God of music. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:20.199 Derek's mentioned the past couple of weeks that the Psalms, we know, of course, are songs 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:26.719 because in part there was a choir at the temple in Jerusalem that would sing these songs. 00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:32.560 And he, the past couple of weeks showed us how these songs would have been sung on the 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:38.520 way to the pilgrimage feast by the Israelites on their journeys to Jerusalem every year. 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.439 And also Israelites would sing them in their homes. 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:42.439 They were songs. 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:44.039 They were meant to be sung. 00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:50.359 And we know very clearly in the Psalms across the Old Testament, God commands over and over 00:03:50.359 --> 00:03:55.479 again to objectively worship him by way of music. 00:03:55.479 --> 00:04:00.439 So music is one of the, one of the significant ways God has said, objectively sing out to 00:04:00.439 --> 00:04:07.239 me a song and worship me by way of music that God receives our worship when we sing to him. 00:04:07.239 --> 00:04:12.879 And at the same time, we know that music has an immense subjective power as well. 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:18.120 So objectively God hears and commands music to be made to him, but then subjectively music 00:04:18.120 --> 00:04:24.399 is one of the unusual realities of existence that has immense subjective power at the same 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:25.719 time. 00:04:25.719 --> 00:04:32.079 And we all know of experiences in our lives where music has really moved us, has really 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:35.680 done significant things in the midst of our heart. 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:41.240 There's not a single parent out there that has ever had to teach a child to dance in the 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:44.280 kitchen when you turn the tunes on while you're cooking dinner. 00:04:44.280 --> 00:04:45.519 They do it instinctively. 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:52.800 They do it, they know that they're to be affected and to be changed and to react to music. 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:55.840 Kurt Vonnegut is one of the famous American authors. 00:04:55.840 --> 00:04:59.439 He wrote a controversial book called The Slaughterhouse Five. 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:07.199 But Kurt Vonnegut was also the president throughout most of his life of the American, 00:05:07.199 --> 00:05:13.680 the American Humanist Association, which is an avowedly atheistic, anti-organized religion 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:17.000 organization that's prominent in the U.S. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.719 And at the same time, when literary scholars today look at Vonnegut and his diaries and 00:05:21.719 --> 00:05:27.599 his life, one of the things that they say about him is that he seems to have been nevertheless 00:05:27.599 --> 00:05:30.560 Christ-haunted his entire life. 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:33.360 And he says a number of things about that. 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:39.759 And one of his letters, he writes that he admires Christianity and he especially admires 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:45.080 Jesus because Jesus brought, he writes, common people around a common table. 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:50.800 So Kurt was appreciative of the hospitality aspect of Christians and churches. 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:55.879 But in another moment, the scholars will talk about these moments where Kurt couldn't help 00:05:55.879 --> 00:06:01.280 but step back away from his committed atheism because of experiences he had had. 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:03.559 And he writes about one of them in one of his letters. 00:06:03.559 --> 00:06:09.959 He says this, music is to me proof of the existence of God. 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:13.199 It is so extraordinarily full of magic. 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:18.119 And in the tough times of my life, I turn to music and I listen to music and it makes 00:06:18.119 --> 00:06:20.719 such a difference. 00:06:20.719 --> 00:06:25.079 There's not a person out there, no matter what you believe in, no matter what religion 00:06:25.079 --> 00:06:31.039 you were raised in, or no matter if you're an atheist or agnostic, that doesn't come to 00:06:31.039 --> 00:06:37.439 music and have an experience of being moved deeply by some invisible power that's inexplicable, 00:06:37.439 --> 00:06:39.199 something that we all participate in. 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:44.759 It can't be merely subjective because we know that music is not something we first make, 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:49.079 it's first something we receive and we react to it. 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:52.079 It happens to us before we ever produce it. 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:57.000 And so that's why theologians throughout the centuries, the church throughout the centuries 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:02.800 has talked about music as the sixth proof for the existence of God. 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:09.199 There's normally been five famous proofs for God's existence from arguments like the moral 00:07:09.199 --> 00:07:10.199 order. 00:07:10.199 --> 00:07:12.479 Everybody seems to know something of the moral law. 00:07:12.479 --> 00:07:16.079 There must be a moral law giver or something of the purpose. 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:18.959 Everybody feels like there's purpose to human existence. 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:22.719 There must be one who gives purpose or the physical laws. 00:07:22.719 --> 00:07:27.359 The sun keeps rising every single day and gravity stays constant. 00:07:27.359 --> 00:07:28.359 Why? 00:07:28.359 --> 00:07:31.079 Because there must be a law giver that keeps these things in place. 00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:37.479 But music has also been called the sixth proof of God's existence because like those same 00:07:37.479 --> 00:07:41.039 things, music has this objective order and law to it. 00:07:41.039 --> 00:07:46.000 It operates under mathematical precision and chords and harmonies. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:51.439 And at the same time, it has this immense subjective power to work on us from the inside 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:53.439 out and to change us. 00:07:53.439 --> 00:08:01.120 And so the question, you come to Psalm 150 and you see God commands humanity and everything 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:04.600 that has breath to worship God by way of song. 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:09.920 And if you were to ask a foundational, maybe even philosophical question like why, why 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:17.759 is it that music is so important to God in the way that we worship God and ask a question 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:21.680 next to it, why is it that music seems to affect us so much? 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:27.600 Those are actually one and the same question or they have the exact same answer. 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:31.120 And it's right here in the first couple of verses of the Psalm and Psalm 150 verse one 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:35.759 and two, we're given a couple of reasons to make music to God. 00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:44.439 And the first one, it says, sing to the Lord, sorry, that's 4950, praise him in his sanctuary. 00:08:44.439 --> 00:08:50.279 Very literally that word sanctuary right there is actually the word holiness in the Hebrew 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:52.559 text that stands behind this English translation. 00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:56.000 So it says praise God in his holiness. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:00.480 And the reason they've put sanctuary there is because what they mean by holiness is that 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:04.879 God is in the holy place in the heavenly temple. 00:09:04.879 --> 00:09:09.960 And when he commissioned the earthly temple in the Old Testament, the earthly temple was 00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:12.439 to mimic the heavenly temple. 00:09:12.439 --> 00:09:15.120 And in the holy of holies, God is seated. 00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:16.399 He is in his holiness. 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:17.840 He's in his sanctuary. 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:19.120 So it's saying praise him. 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:25.399 In other words, it's saying before you make music to him, first look up and see that God 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:31.440 is the king enthroned in his holy place in his utter holiness in the heavenly temple. 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:35.240 And then the second reason it gives here is to then also look back. 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:40.120 It says, well, and look in history as well in the Old Testament and see the mighty deeds 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:41.200 of God. 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:46.720 In other words, it's saying to be motivated to make music to the Lord, the Psalmist writes, 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:48.720 look up and look back. 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:49.720 And those are the two reasons. 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:55.440 Now, when you do that, when you look up and you look back, first, let me say something 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:56.440 about looking up. 00:09:56.440 --> 00:09:59.120 You look up and you see God. 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:01.240 You think about God and his holiness. 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:08.200 There's a text just about that Isaiah chapter six that pulls back the curtain on the heavenly 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:13.399 temple and allows us to see for a moment what Isaiah sees. 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:16.159 And when you when that happens, what is right there in Isaiah six? 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:22.200 We see the angels and the cherubs and the seraph singing and they're saying, holy, holy, 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:23.200 they're singing the song. 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:25.480 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God. 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:29.120 And we sing that song sometimes in our congregation as well. 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:33.600 And what you learn is that when you look up at the heavenly temple, heaven is a soundscape 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:35.799 of music. 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:40.159 That there's a constant reciprocal song being sung. 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:44.279 And we learn that it's not only the angel singing, but that God sings in different places 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:45.279 throughout scripture. 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:46.799 God sings back. 00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:49.440 He speaks and his voice is like a trumpet. 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:52.600 The text tells us and he sings back to the heavenly house. 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:56.680 But if you not only look up and know that the heavenly temple is full of music, it's 00:10:56.679 --> 00:11:03.039 a soundscape, but also if you look back throughout the Old Testament, you see something incredibly 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:04.039 similar. 00:11:04.039 --> 00:11:09.279 Peter Lightheart is one of them, a really good American theologian. 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:12.679 And he writes this, he's thought a lot about music in scripture. 00:11:12.679 --> 00:11:13.679 And this is what he writes. 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:19.319 He says, Sopranos can break a glass with a high C note. 00:11:19.319 --> 00:11:25.240 But God in Psalm 29 by his voice breaks the cedar trees. 00:11:25.240 --> 00:11:30.799 Psalm 29 were told that God sings, his voice goes forth in the cedar trees break, just 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:34.960 like a soprano might break a glass with a high C note. 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:42.560 And it's not only God's power in his voice, his voice as song, but in Zephaniah 3 it says 00:11:42.560 --> 00:11:46.480 that God sings over his restored bride. 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:51.560 So it's not only that his voice goes forth in the power of song, creative song, but that 00:11:51.559 --> 00:11:57.039 God turns and uses his voice to sing a song over the people that he's come to rescue over 00:11:57.039 --> 00:11:58.039 his bride. 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:01.359 And that's what the entire song of song, song of Solomon is about. 00:12:01.359 --> 00:12:07.239 It's a love song where God sings over his bride through the metaphor of Solomon and 00:12:07.239 --> 00:12:08.239 his bride. 00:12:08.239 --> 00:12:09.879 He sings over, he loves her. 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:12.439 God sings songs over his people. 00:12:12.439 --> 00:12:15.839 He sings songs in power, in, into creation. 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:22.800 And he sings amongst his host in the heavenlies and in Isaiah 5 even God sings a song of 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:26.879 lamentation over his lost vineyard. 00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:34.280 Israel has been conquered and he sings a song of sorrow over Israel, the loss of Israel. 00:12:34.280 --> 00:12:41.160 In other words, the point, the question, why is it that God commands, calls us in Psalm 00:12:41.160 --> 00:12:45.040 150 at the end to sing, to make music to him? 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:46.959 And why is it that music is so powerful? 00:12:46.959 --> 00:12:50.559 Why is it that music so affects us both objectively? 00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:52.559 Why is it so real and subjectively? 00:12:52.559 --> 00:12:55.240 It has such immense weight in our lives. 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:58.759 And it's this God, God made music. 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:03.159 God sings both in heaven and on earth. 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:06.959 And God loves to receive music as praise. 00:13:06.959 --> 00:13:10.279 But if you dig underneath that even further, what, what is it? 00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:14.959 Why this music and this is the reason I think our music, human music, the music that we've 00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:23.400 received from God and that we make to God is actually a mimic, an image of the beauty 00:13:23.400 --> 00:13:25.480 of God's voice. 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:28.639 We make music because we're in the image of the Lord. 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:34.600 And as the image of God, we're able to make music that mimics when it's good music. 00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:38.120 The image, it mimics God's, the beauty of God's very voice. 00:13:38.120 --> 00:13:42.440 We take that which is beautiful that, that God has given us and we return it back to 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:44.560 the one who is utter beauty. 00:13:44.559 --> 00:13:51.399 And so the reason we make music is because our God is a God most musical. 00:13:51.399 --> 00:13:54.239 Here's my cliche stock, C.S. 00:13:54.239 --> 00:13:55.239 Lewis, J.R. 00:13:55.239 --> 00:13:58.679 Tolkien illustration. 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:03.319 Tolkien and Lewis, the author of Lord of the Rings and of Chronicles of Narnia, both talked 00:14:03.319 --> 00:14:08.279 about this in their Inklings meetings in the middle of the 20th century. 00:14:08.279 --> 00:14:10.199 And they were trying to get at this. 00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:15.600 Tolkien wrote a book called The Silmarillion, which is much more boring than The Lord of 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:16.600 the Rings. 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:21.840 But at the very beginning of it, he offers a creation myth and it's the creation myth 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.640 of Middle Earth, the earth of the Lord of the Rings. 00:14:24.640 --> 00:14:27.840 And in it, the God, he calls him a Luvitar. 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:32.440 A Luvitar sings creation into being. 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:38.879 And in Lewis's Narnia, in the second book, The Magician's Nephew, Aslan comes into Narnia 00:14:38.879 --> 00:14:43.439 and it's a wasteland and the children are there and they get to watch and Aslan sings 00:14:43.439 --> 00:14:45.960 order into creation. 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:50.200 And Lewis writes that the children have never heard such a beautiful voice, a beautiful 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:52.720 song in all of their lives. 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:55.039 And they were getting at something. 00:14:55.039 --> 00:15:00.759 And that's that many theologians have talked about the fact that our God, the Triune God 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:08.080 three and one, God, the Father, he speaks, his voice goes forth and God, the Son is the 00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:12.160 word, the very lyrics of God's speech. 00:15:12.160 --> 00:15:18.720 And God, the Spirit is the breath, the actual song that goes forth into the world. 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:24.240 We see him organizing creation according to the word of God all the way back in Genesis 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:25.240 one. 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:33.320 And that's why Paul in the Book of Ephesians gives this incredibly strange line, another 00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:39.120 important text in the history of our denomination where Paul commands us to sing psalms and 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:41.480 hymns and spiritual songs. 00:15:41.480 --> 00:15:47.800 But just before that, he attaches that command to the weirdest phrase and he says, do not 00:15:47.800 --> 00:15:51.720 be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. 00:15:51.720 --> 00:15:56.240 And so, seeing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, he says, well, Paul, what are you saying? 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:59.320 What is being drunk and filled with the Spirit have to do with singing? 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:05.840 And you see what he's saying, he's saying, let the Spirit give you a song to sing, not 00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:07.600 the wine. 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:13.160 Don't be merry and sing because of being drunk, but because the Spirit has filled you up. 00:16:13.160 --> 00:16:19.400 And we get that in Isaiah 40, sorry, Psalm 40, when it says, God has put a new song into 00:16:19.400 --> 00:16:20.879 my mouth. 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:26.400 And specifically, the Spirit of God puts a new song into our mouth. 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:34.000 I'll end this longer point by saying, with this, Jeremy Begbie, a theologian, a British 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:40.159 theologian who's at Duke University in the States, he writes actually that it's so difficult 00:16:40.159 --> 00:16:46.120 for us to think of ways to talk about God and to think about how God is three in one, 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:50.799 Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet one God, the same in essence. 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:54.879 And Jeremy Begbie points out that one of the best ways to do that as a human being, to 00:16:54.879 --> 00:16:59.639 think about that, is actually the metaphor of the musical chord. 00:16:59.639 --> 00:17:04.599 Because the chord is three notes, but it's one sound. 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:08.079 It's one in essence, but three in number. 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:12.880 And it's one of the great metaphors for who God is because our God is a God most musical. 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:16.240 He commands us to sing because he sings. 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.480 And he sings over us and he sings to us. 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:26.480 And there also is here a third reason to sing praise to God we're given. 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:30.640 And this is about the music of deliverance. 00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:31.720 You can see it right there. 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:36.279 Not only praise God in his holiness, praise God for his mighty deeds, but then there's 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:41.880 another one in verse two, praise him according to his excellent greatness, the text tells 00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:42.880 us. 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:51.160 Excellent greatness is a common translation of that word, but that word is full of meaning 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:53.240 in the way it shows up throughout the Bible. 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:58.200 And one of the ways to know exactly what the Psalmist is saying to us here is to actually 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:05.920 recognize that Psalm 150 is a part of a set of five Psalms that all come together at the 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:09.320 end of the Psalm book, 146 through 150. 00:18:09.320 --> 00:18:10.960 They're part of the Hallel's. 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:14.240 They all say praise the Lord sing hallelujah to God. 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:18.000 But we've been talking about the unity and diversity of the Psalms. 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:20.759 There's a unity in the last five Psalms. 00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:25.319 There's sort of a logic that develops over the course of the last five Psalms. 00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:27.720 And if you looked at each one of them, we're not going to do it. 00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:29.000 Don't worry. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:33.519 And you could whittle it down to just one sentence of which each of the last five Psalms 00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:36.600 is saying there's a structure to it. 00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:42.639 And Psalm 146 says praise God, make music to God instead of princes instead of the kings 00:18:42.639 --> 00:18:45.480 of the earth, because he is the true king. 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:48.240 And we see that right here in verse one. 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:49.240 Praise him in his holiness. 00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:50.240 It's a king. 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:51.879 It's a kingship. 00:18:51.879 --> 00:18:53.439 It's a reason because he's king. 00:18:53.439 --> 00:18:54.799 That's what Psalm 146 says. 00:18:54.799 --> 00:19:00.119 147 says praise him because he builds up Jerusalem with people. 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:05.319 So the king in Psalm 146 then founds a kingdom in Psalm 147. 00:19:05.319 --> 00:19:07.159 The king needs a people to be the king. 00:19:07.159 --> 00:19:08.919 And so he creates a people. 00:19:08.919 --> 00:19:15.439 Psalm 149, the skip one says praise him because he then judges all the other kings in justice. 00:19:15.439 --> 00:19:19.439 So only this king can actually bring justice to the world. 00:19:19.439 --> 00:19:23.000 And then if you step back to Psalm 148 at the very end, it gives the reason to praise 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:24.519 him at the very end of Psalm 148. 00:19:24.519 --> 00:19:26.000 And this is what it says. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:30.799 Praise him because he has raised up a horn for his people. 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.119 Now the other ones are clear. 00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:34.399 That one's different. 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:38.160 Praise him because he's raised up a horn for his people. 00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:43.200 And that's actually a really significant metaphor that gets used all throughout the Old Testament 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:46.440 that we don't talk about very often. 00:19:46.440 --> 00:19:47.759 But it has two meanings. 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:53.920 It's literally talking there about a bull's horn or the horn of a bull. 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:57.560 And it says praise him because he has raised up the horn. 00:19:57.560 --> 00:20:00.660 Sometimes that phrase is used in scripture as the horn of salvation. 00:20:00.660 --> 00:20:01.960 And it's two meanings are this. 00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:09.960 And it's saying God is a God who has the power like a bull to save his people in their 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:11.480 imperial. 00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:18.240 So sometimes the horn of salvation is referring to God's power to deliver people from anything, 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:22.840 to take people up out of slavery, to take people up from the misery of their own sin, 00:20:22.840 --> 00:20:25.079 to do anything he can deliver. 00:20:25.079 --> 00:20:29.160 And then at the same time, the metaphor gets used right after that to then say, and you 00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:32.160 have raised up in my life a horn of salvation. 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:37.920 Hannah at the beginning of the books of Samuel says this, she sings a song to God and she 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:42.680 said, Lord, because of this child you've given me, you have lifted up a horn. 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:44.480 You've put a horn into my hands. 00:20:44.480 --> 00:20:47.680 Meaning it's being used as an instrument. 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:53.759 And it's saying God who is who is powerful to deliver anybody also then puts the horn 00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:59.519 in your hand as an instrument, as a trumpet to return to God with music, with praise. 00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:02.640 And so it's got this double entendre throughout scripture. 00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:08.000 Now in Psalm 150, at the first three, first couple of things, it's over viewing all the 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:13.079 reasons to praise God that have already been there in the previous four Psalms. 00:21:13.079 --> 00:21:19.640 And when it says praise God here for his excellent greatness, it's referring there to something 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:21.799 very specific. 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:24.359 And we see it all throughout the Old Testament. 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:30.119 It's directly related to the horn of salvation for God the deliverer, because this word greatness 00:21:30.119 --> 00:21:37.279 shows up all across the Old Testament and always means God's work to redeem Israel from 00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:38.279 the pit of slavery. 00:21:38.279 --> 00:21:44.639 You see it in Deuteronomy 3 and Moses says, writes that we praise you God for all your 00:21:44.639 --> 00:21:46.519 greatness, your many greatnesses. 00:21:46.519 --> 00:21:51.720 And he's talking there about each of the moments God delivered the people of God from captivity 00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:55.799 from their own sense, from their own grumbling from Egypt. 00:21:55.799 --> 00:21:56.799 It means deliverance. 00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:01.799 It means it's about it's specifically saying praise God for his work of salvation. 00:22:01.799 --> 00:22:09.160 Now the Psalms make clear that we've got to look backwards in order to praise God and 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:11.680 we've got to look up in order to praise God. 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:18.960 But at the same time, the Psalms all across make it very clear too that there is a looking 00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:24.799 forward that all the people who would have sang these songs in the Old Testament were 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:26.299 left to do. 00:22:26.299 --> 00:22:32.960 That there was a, David wrote so many of them, but there was a David's son that they were 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.360 waiting to sing about, a true horn of salvation, a true deliverer. 00:22:36.360 --> 00:22:41.559 And when you go to the New Testament, and we read about this in our first reading, Jesus 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:46.680 Christ on the night that he was betrayed, he institutes the Lord's Supper. 00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:51.560 And then maybe you remember verse 26 from the Mark reading we did just a moment ago. 00:22:51.560 --> 00:22:58.160 It says he got up from table and he sang before he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:05.560 And we know that on Passover night, it was custom that they would sing Psalm 113 to 118 00:23:05.560 --> 00:23:11.880 at the end of the meal, which are the first set of Hallel Psalms that parallel the set 00:23:11.880 --> 00:23:16.080 of Hallel Psalms that we're reading about at the end of the Psalter. 00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:22.839 Jesus Christ on the night he was betrayed to prepare his heart to go to death, he lifted 00:23:22.839 --> 00:23:30.240 up his voice in song because he needed the power of song and worship before his God to 00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:31.639 do what he was about to do. 00:23:31.639 --> 00:23:34.720 And you know, on the night he was betrayed in the next day when he was crucified, he 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:41.799 went to the cross and he sent, he, it's the text tells us he cried out and he said, my 00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:43.839 God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:48.599 He sang out before all the people into his father, Psalm 22. 00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:55.759 He sang the song and he went to die for us and he went to die for us singing the whole 00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:56.759 way. 00:23:56.759 --> 00:23:57.919 He was completely judged. 00:23:57.919 --> 00:24:06.079 You see, he is, Jesus Christ is the one that Colossians one tells us is the very lyrics 00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:13.159 of God going forth into creation to hold all of existence together. 00:24:13.160 --> 00:24:19.120 And this God shows up in the middle of history, singing a song to uplift his heart as he goes 00:24:19.120 --> 00:24:22.200 to die for every single one of you. 00:24:22.200 --> 00:24:28.640 For me, the judge, the creator judged completely and broken in our place. 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:33.120 His voice can break the cedars of Lebanon. 00:24:33.120 --> 00:24:38.400 And when he went to the cross, his body and soul was completely broken for us. 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:44.240 And you see, he's saying this, these Psalms of lamentation and woe and praise as he went 00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:51.000 to the cross so that today you could know that Jesus Christ sings a song over you. 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.720 He has, Jesus Christ wants to, desires to look at you, each and every one of you today 00:24:56.720 --> 00:25:01.320 and say and sing over you like a, like the husband sings over his bride on the wedding 00:25:01.320 --> 00:25:03.040 day. 00:25:03.040 --> 00:25:08.120 And that means that Jesus Christ is the horn of salvation and he is the music of the gospel 00:25:08.119 --> 00:25:10.199 and he is the music of ultimate deliverance. 00:25:10.199 --> 00:25:15.679 He is the great singer himself and he has come to sing over you this day to reconcile 00:25:15.679 --> 00:25:20.919 you to the living God for you to rest in the reality of the music of the gospel. 00:25:20.919 --> 00:25:25.839 Now we'll close finally with just briefly saying something about the power of the gospel. 00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:28.239 That's right, the power of music. 00:25:28.239 --> 00:25:29.959 There's also power in the gospel too. 00:25:29.959 --> 00:25:33.679 And for that reason, there's power in music. 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:41.000 If you believe on Jesus Christ today, there are some big promises implicit in this passage 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:46.640 about what it means to make music to God because of the music of the gospel. 00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:50.360 And I'm just going to quickly say four of them as we close. 00:25:50.360 --> 00:25:54.960 And the first one is this, it's just to review what we've already said. 00:25:54.960 --> 00:26:01.200 God made music, God sings over us, his people. 00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:04.960 And so he calls us to respond to him in music. 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:11.559 And what that simply means, and it's simple, but it's important to say this, that God loves 00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:16.200 to receive your worship by way of song. 00:26:16.200 --> 00:26:18.319 God loves to hear you sing. 00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:21.000 God loves to hear your voice lifted up. 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:25.039 And he receives that as a pleasant aroma of living sacrifice. 00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:26.039 He loves it. 00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:32.319 It glorifies God so much when you are satisfied in him enough to sing a song to him. 00:26:32.319 --> 00:26:33.319 That's the first thing. 00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:36.839 The second thing is this, another objective point. 00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:38.559 Not only that, we could take it even further. 00:26:38.559 --> 00:26:44.759 In Hebrews chapter two, Jesus Christ says this, I will sing a song in the midst of my 00:26:44.759 --> 00:26:46.879 brothers and sisters. 00:26:46.879 --> 00:26:52.240 And so there's a promise in Hebrews two that when you sing a song to the Lord, Jesus Christ 00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:57.799 sings not only for you, but alongside of you, that you don't sing alone, that Jesus Christ 00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:03.559 sings songs of intercession alongside you as you lift up your voice to the living God. 00:27:03.559 --> 00:27:08.920 That heaven is a soundscape where Christ the Redeemer is the chief singer, and he sings 00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:09.920 with you. 00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:12.759 He sings with us today as we sing songs and worship. 00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:20.440 Now those are both objective realities that we've got to lean into and heed and cherish 00:27:20.440 --> 00:27:25.559 and obey all at the same time, but there's, let me finish with two subjective realities 00:27:25.559 --> 00:27:32.120 as well, because music has both objective reality and immense subjective power. 00:27:32.120 --> 00:27:34.400 And that's why God gives it to us. 00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:40.400 And the third is this, very simple, singing warms the heart. 00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:48.360 Yesterday I flew to London early in the morning to pick up a vehicle that I'd purchased a 00:27:48.360 --> 00:27:49.440 van. 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:52.759 Someone in our congregation has been overly generous the last few weeks in loaning us 00:27:52.759 --> 00:27:58.039 her car, but I've got too many little children running around to fit them all into the car, 00:27:58.039 --> 00:28:00.320 and so we had to get something bigger. 00:28:00.320 --> 00:28:04.759 And so I went to London yesterday to pick up a vehicle and drove back, and I met a new 00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:10.200 friend, the dealer that sold me the car, and he was very kind and very generous, and he 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:15.920 picked me up at the airport, and we drove to his dealership, and we had a great time, 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:21.960 and he said he was going to join us online today for worship, so I hope he's doing that. 00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:26.560 But I got to his dealership and I saw 50 cars or so sitting out in the lot, and I thought 00:28:26.560 --> 00:28:33.840 about this, it's winter, and when you have that many cars to deal with, you all know 00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:39.640 probably what happens when you let a car sit out in the freezing cold throughout winter, 00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:43.200 and if you never go out and you never crank it, what happens? 00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:46.799 You come to the end of winter and it's been freezing, and you try to turn that car on 00:28:46.799 --> 00:28:51.519 and it just clicks, and it won't turn over, and the warmth of the engine will not fire, 00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:52.920 it won't trigger. 00:28:52.920 --> 00:28:59.240 I think perhaps many of us struggle in our day-to-day relationship with God and communing 00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:04.360 with the Lord day-to-day, we come to prayer in Scripture perhaps in the morning, and we 00:29:04.360 --> 00:29:09.480 feel like our prayers are hitting the ceiling and they're not going any farther than the 00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:14.960 dust on the curtains, and we're stale when we open the text and we're just getting through 00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:17.120 it. 00:29:17.120 --> 00:29:20.440 Singing is like going out in the middle of winter and cranking up that engine so that 00:29:20.440 --> 00:29:23.160 when you really get going, it's warm and it's ready. 00:29:23.160 --> 00:29:28.360 Singing changes your heart, it warms your heart, and God says in the Psalms, sing a 00:29:28.360 --> 00:29:31.519 new song to the Lord every morning. 00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:36.759 Worship the Lord in song as part of your daily routine, your spiritual discipline of turning 00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:39.559 your heart back to the God of the Gospel every single day. 00:29:39.559 --> 00:29:41.879 There's real practical weight and value in that. 00:29:41.879 --> 00:29:50.160 Fourth and finally, Psalm 1 and Psalm 150 are the beginning and end of this book. 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:56.240 And in Psalm 1 we're instructed to begin the Psalms by prayer, and in Psalm 150 they end 00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:59.200 with praise, with joyful praise. 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:02.200 Eugene Peterson, he says this about that. 00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:07.960 He says that the reason that the Psalms start with Psalm 1 and end with Psalm 150 is because 00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:12.279 all prayer pursued far enough becomes praise. 00:30:12.279 --> 00:30:19.000 Any prayer, no matter how desperate its origin, no matter how angry and fearful the experiences 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:23.640 it traverses, ends up eventually in praise. 00:30:23.640 --> 00:30:25.680 It does not always get there quickly. 00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:28.960 It does not get there easily most of the time. 00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:35.480 The trip can take a lifetime, but every single prayer for somebody who rests in the Christ, 00:30:35.480 --> 00:30:40.799 who sings over them, will end in praise, in joyful praise. 00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:46.519 It may take years, decades, even before certain specific prayers will arrive at the hallelujah 00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:48.840 of Psalm 150. 00:30:48.840 --> 00:30:51.200 Not every prayer is capped off with praise in our life. 00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:58.120 In fact, most prayers, if the Psalter is a true guide, do not end in praise. 00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:02.599 They end in pleads and lamentation and sorrow. 00:31:02.599 --> 00:31:08.839 But prayer will always reach toward praise if Jesus Christ is your God, because death 00:31:08.839 --> 00:31:12.359 will become resurrection in the end. 00:31:12.359 --> 00:31:16.639 And so there's an ultimate unity to this great prayer book, this singing, this musical book 00:31:16.639 --> 00:31:18.239 that God has given us. 00:31:18.239 --> 00:31:24.319 Make music today to the Christ, to the God of the Gospel that has come into this world 00:31:24.319 --> 00:31:26.599 because he wants to sing over you. 00:31:26.599 --> 00:31:28.399 And let's do that now. 00:31:28.399 --> 00:31:29.919 Let's pray and then we'll sing. 00:31:29.919 --> 00:31:35.959 Father, we give thanks that you make music to us. 00:31:35.959 --> 00:31:40.559 And you sing over us as a bride restored to a bridegroom. 00:31:40.559 --> 00:31:48.159 And so we come today to return songs to you, Lord, because they make much of your beauty 00:31:48.159 --> 00:31:49.159 in their beauty. 00:31:49.159 --> 00:31:54.799 And so we ask that you would lift up our hearts to you, our Lord, as we sing now this song. 00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:56.799 And we pray this in Christ's name. 00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:24.799 Amen.